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Mom Furious After Instagram Photo of Kids Turns Into Offensive Meme

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by Angelica Sereda on June 18, 2014

Angelica Sereda

About the Author

<p>Angelica Sereda is a writer, wife, mother, pitbull lover, aspiring renaissance woman and die-hard New Yorker, just not always in that order. She lives near the beach with her husband and two daughters, Olivia and Julia.</p>

About the Blog

WhatToExpect.com supports Word of Mom as a place to share stories and highlight the many perspectives and experiences of pregnancy and parenting. However, the opinions expressed in this section are those of individual writers and do not reflect the views of Heidi Murkoff of the What to Expect brand.

Trending With Moms

It seems that parents nowadays can't keep photos of their little ones private.

Virginia mama, Ciara Logan, posted photos on Instagram of her kids over Father's day weekend, in what was supposed to be just a cute picture of her kids with their "Sunday best." Somehow, a complete stranger got a hold of one of the images and turned it into a meme with offensive captions and hashtags, reports CBS's affiliate station in Virginia, WTVR.

Logan discovered the tasteless joke when she saw a stranger had given the photo a "like" and decided to check out their page. To her surprise, the stranger's photos included those of her children — an 8-year-old son and 2-year-old twin daughters — as a meme.

"To insinuate that my son is a pimp- or that my son is selling cars- because he has on a suit and has two little girls with him- or to hashtag, 'keep him away from those girls,' as if to say my son is a predator," she said. "He's an eight-year-old boy who is very caring, very loving, very nourishing, very protective of his sisters."

When Logan tried to contact the person who had posted the photo, he had blocked her, changed his account to a private setting and changed his account name.

Her advice to other parents? "My message is share them with the ones you love via text message. Get a page that is for family only and private your page."

Unfortunately, Logan's incident is not unique.

Kate White, from Lafayette, LA, was with her moms group at Chick-fil-A, when someone took a photo of her breastfeeding her 6-month-old baby. A few hours later, White was searching the net when she saw the snapshot of her breastfeeding with the caption "Anybody want some milk? Noon time at a restaurant is not a place to do this?" The meme went viral on Facebook, with people from across the country voicing their opinions.

And earlier this month, Julia Fierro, a writer and mother of a 2-year-old, shared her experience on the Huffington Post about a photo of her daughter that went viral after it was turned into a meme. The meme of Fierro's daughter is a lot more light-hearted compared to Logan's and White's (it's a photo of her visibly upset toddler on a swing with the caption, "Mood Swing"), however, she still wanted it to be removed. After several failed attempts of having it taken down, she decided to accept the fact that the photo of her daughter and meme would live on the internet forever.

These photo-sharing incidents definitely make me even more hesitant to share images of my kids online. Granted, most of the photos I want to post on Instagram and Facebook are of my daughters — what parent doesn't overshare each milestone in their kids' lives? But I would be horrified to find my kids' faces splashed across the internet, whether an innocent little meme or something more inappropriate. I guess it's something we inadvertently "sign up" for when we become users of Instagram and other social media sites.

Bottom line: It's wise to keep your info private, keep details at a minimum and double check your friends list before you share your kiddo's adorable mugs all over the World Wide Web.

How would you react if someone misused photos of your children on the internet? Share below in the comments section!

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